Saturday, April 6, 2013

#575 - F is for Frenetic

Here's an example of the kind of day I DON'T like to have in the E.D...

My shift started at 0800, there were already 5 patients on the board,

4 of which my colleague signed out to me waiting for lab or xray results.

The patients I saw today:

- patient who swallowed an entire bottle of herbal supplement after confusing it with a bottle of 5 Hour Energy Drink

- leg pain for a week, worse today

- I Didn't Know I was Pregnant show candidate who came in about 7 months pregnant and using meth

- patient with facial lac after a fall out of their wheelchair

- psych patient off their meds who ran out the door twice, and brought back by police once

- patient who passed out while getting out of their trailer

- strep throat

- skin infection

- patient who passed out while doing chair exercises with their senior group

- asthma attack

- migraine headache

- hair coloring on beard gone awry

- dental infection

- alcohol intoxication, passed out in front of the local market

- cough for several months

- chronic headache who could only be treated with demerol which we haven't had in the ED for years

- tick bite brought in because "we didn't get it all out"

- end of life hospice patient

- patient who was second in line to be seen, but left because after waiting 30 minutes they couldn't wait any longer for the CT they knew "they just had to have" for the belly pain that had been going on for several weeks

- appendicitis

- eye irritation

- panic attack

- alcohol intoxication hit in head by spouse with head laceration that then cussed us out and ran out the door

- skin infection

- febrile illness in transplant patient

I left out identifiers like sex... the pregnant person you can figure out.

I left out much of some of the back story because this is a small town